Instagram today announced the launch of a new feature called “Stories” and if the name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s basically the same as Snapchat Stories. Tapping on an avatar will open a photo or a short video clip (of up to 10 seconds) that they have posted to the Stories feed within the last 24 hours.
Advertisement
On its blog Instagram says the new functionality will allow users to “share all the moments of your day” as well as content they wish to remain on their profile, without the fear of over-posting.
A bar at the top of your Instagram feed will show the stories from the people you follow.
In major tech news, Instagram unveiled a new Stories feature that has the beauty world buzzing-and some critics condemning the lack of Snapchat-like filters. Stories also have the same privacy settings like posts on Instagram and you can choose if you want to keep it public or private.
If a user’s account is private, their story is visible only to their friends.
Instagram Stories is rolling out over the coming weeks for Android and iOS. Perhaps Stories is the solution to Instagram’s unpopular algorithmic feed, which decides on your behalf which images to surface in your main feed. Ever since Snapchat came onto the scene, Facebook’s been trying to buy it or incorporate some of its more successful features into its own product. If something catches your eye, you can either swipe left to re-watch a full clip (otherwise it will automatically send you to the next Story on your timeline), or if there are multiple clips in one Story, you can tap the upper left screen to essentially rewind. Even the chief exec of Instagram, Kevin System, referenced Snapchat without actually mentioning them, saying “other companies deserve all the credit” for the idea of ephemeral photos and videos. Later in the post, there’s another line that reinforces this point: “Instagram has always been a place to share the moments you want to remember. Now you can share your highlights and everything in between, too”. However, you can also easily hide your entire story from anyone you don’t want to see it, even if they follow you.
That’s right; Instagram Stories is a new feature that resembles the Snapchat platform in many ways.
Facebook also tried to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion a few years ago, but the offered was rejected.
Advertisement
If eyeballs equals dollars, then yes, it makes sense for Facebook and Instagram [Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012] to completely imitate one of Snapchat’s greatest features, especially among Millennials and Gen-Z users.
